Tiede v. Collier

In a lawsuit in which an incarcerated individual and four organizations asserted that extreme heat conditions in Texas prisons violated the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment, the federal district court for the Western District of Texas found that it was not in the parties’ or the public interest to issue a preliminary injunction ordering the Executive Director of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) to install temporary air conditioning in every correctional facility because doing so would divert resources from the installation of permanent air conditioning. The court therefore denied the plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction despite finding that the plaintiffs met their burden of establishing a likelihood of success on the merits of their Eighth Amendment claim by showing that the heat posed an unreasonable risk of serious harm and that the Executive Director acted with deliberate indifference to the risk by implementing the only reasonable mitigation measure (air conditioning) “at a pace that disregards the substantial risk of harm the inmates face.” The court noted that approximately 96,500 of TDCJ’s 142,240 beds remained un-airconditioned, that outdoor heat indexes had been as high as 134F in the past two summers, and that indoor temperatures were above 85F in TDCJ facilities nearly every day from May 1, 2023 to September 30, 2023. The court stated that “[t]he heat will only get worse with climate change,” citing a declaration submitted by a climatologist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, whose opinions the court found to be credible. The court also found that the plaintiffs had shown that TDCJ inmates housed in unair-conditioned prisons would experience irreparable harm absent court intervention. The court further found, however, that the analysis of the balance of the equities and the public interest presented “an unusual and highly frustrating challenge.” The court concluded that because installation of temporary air conditioning “would involve a different design and construction process than that of a permanent system, the considerable funds necessary to accomplish such temporary relief would be at the expense of the much more elaborate and expensive process of achieving permanent air conditioning,” which the court said was a shared goal of the plaintiffs and the Executive Director, as well as of the Texas Legislature, which was currently considering bills that would establish required temperature ranges for prisons. The court emphasized that it anticipated the plaintiffs would ultimately succeed on the merits and said that should the Executive Director fail to obtain sufficient funding and demonstrate to the court a plan for providing sufficient air conditioning in a timely manner, the court “reserves its right to revisit its analysis regarding the balance of equities and public interest.”

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